The Animal is a 2001 comedy film, directed by Luke Greenfield. It stars Rob Schneider, Colleen Haskell, Edward Asner, and John C. McGinley.

Schneider plays Marvin Mange, a man who is critically injured but unknown to him he is put back together by a mad scientist who transplants animal parts, resulting in strange permanent changes to his behavior.

Plot [link]

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Marvin Mange (Rob Schneider) is a meek, uncoordinated man who dreams of being a police officer like his dad was. Instead, Marvin works as a trainee in a small town police station. He tries a few times to pass the physical test to become a full-fledged police officer, but he just can't seem to finish the obstacle course. Marvin gets no respect from Sgt. Sisk (John C. McGinley).

One day, while left alone at the station, he receives a robbery call. With all of the real policemen out at a softball game, Marvin rushes to the scene himself. Along the way, he swerves to avoid a seal in the road and crashes over a cliff. He is critically injured, but is rescued by Dr. Wilder (Michael Caton), a mad scientist who puts Marvin back together using animal parts.

Days later, Marvin is returned to his normal life with no memory of what he has just been through. Suddenly, he's full of life. He can outrun horses, mean dogs are now scared of him, and he doesn't need his asthma medicine anymore. He thinks it's due to his late-night TV purchase of "Badger Milk", which is guaranteed in the ads to make him stronger.

One day at the park, Marvin meets Rianna (Colleen Haskell) while she's out walking dogs from her animal shelter. His animal-like tendencies are slowly taking him over. When a frisbee is thrown in his direction, he can't control himself, and he jumps to catch it in his mouth.

He goes to the airport to talk to his friend, Miles the security guard (Guy Torry), about his problem. While there, Marvin sniffs out a man trying to hide heroin in his rectum. For uncovering a drug smuggler, Marvin is declared a hero and is made a full-fledged police officer.

As days go by, Marvin's animal instincts are becoming stronger and stronger. He often wakes up in strange places, and subsequently, hears about animal attacks that occurred in the middle of the night. Because of these attacks, Dr. Wilder believes that Marvin is out of control. The mad scientist confronts him, takes him to his laboratory, and explains about the grafts and transplants that saved and changed Marvin's life, and gave him remarkable animal powers with certain problematic side effects.

Later at a party thrown by the Mayor (Scott Wilson), Marvin chases after a cat and destroys everything around him. Marvin is fired on the spot. During his reprimand, he hears something, jumps into the nearby lake and rescues the mayor's son using powers derived from a sea lion and a dolphin. He is swiftly reinstated.

Chief Wilson (Edward Asner) questions Marvin about the late-night attacks on farm animals, because one of witnesses made a police sketch—and it is identical to Marvin.

Rianna goes to Marvin's house, where he has barricaded himself inside. They spend the night together, but Marvin wants to be tied up so he can't hurt anyone anymore. In the morning, he finds himself untied, courtesy of Rianna. Suddenly, the police show up outside. Another attack had happened that night, and the police have come for Marvin. Rianna convinces him to run.

Marvin escapes to the woods, where a huge chase ensues. The police have organized an angry mob into a search party to catch Marvin. While running through the woods, Marvin finds Dr. Wilder. The scientist tells him that there was another "patient" of his that is out of control, and he is in the woods looking for it.

Sergeant Sisk confronts Marvin, and is about to shoot him. Suddenly, the other "animal" jumps from a tree and knocks Sisk down. The beast is Rianna. Now, the crowd finds them both together. Miles is there, and he takes the blame for everything. He has been claiming that there is reverse discrimination with him since he's black, and that no one wants to hold him accountable for anything. Sure enough, once the mob thinks a black man was the responsible party, they don't care anymore, and leave, one man (Norm Macdonald) saying "I'm never gonna be part of a mob to kill a black guy, I'll tell you that."

Marvin and Rianna get married, and have a litter of children that each look like Marvin. While watching the television, they see Dr. Wilder win the Nobel Peace Prize. He says he owes it all to his fiancée, who happens to be the same woman from the Badger Milk commercial. When she turns around to kiss him, there are large scars shown on her back, implying that Wilder performed the experiment on her as well.

Cast [link]

• Rob Schneider as Marvin Mange
• Colleen Haskell as Rianna
• John C. McGinley as Sergeant Sisk
• Edward Asner as Chief Wilson
• Michael Caton as Dr. Wilder
• Louis Lombardi as Fatty
• Norm Macdonald as Mob Member
• John Farley as Other Mob
• Guy Torry as Miles
• Adam Sandler as Townie
• Sebastian Jude as The Lost Boy
• Charlie Stewart as The Evidence Room Kid # 1
• Philip Daniel Bolden as The Evidence Room Kid # 2

Reception [link]

Box office [link]

The Animal debuted on June 1, 2001, grossing $19.6 million U.S. in its opening weekend. With a production budget of $47 million, the movie grossed $84,772,742 internationally.^[1]

[edit] Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 30% based on 82 reviews.^[2] Metacritic gave the film a score of 43% indication mixed or average reviews.^[3]

Controversy [link]

Despite receiving mostly negative critical reaction, one supporter of the film at the time of its release was film critic David Manning who gave the film critical praise. In late 2001, Manning was revealed to be fictitious, created by Sony to fake publicity for the film. At the time, Sony claimed that the error was due to a layout artist who entered 'dummy text' into print advertisements during their design, which was accidentally never replaced with real text.^[4]

References [link]

External links [link]

• The Animal at the Internet Movie Database
• The Animal at AllRovi
• The Animal at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Animal at Box Office Mojo